Recent reviews by Daltaine

A disaster on normal difficulty. The AI can't handle the dlc. They will not expand or get into other wars as they have a rebellion in every commandary on every turn so can't leave their home territory. The fervour was 100 in every single province for the whole game (outside of the tribal areas). When I declared empire many of the top ten were still second Marquis. I'll try on hard and see if the extra cheats they get can help.

The games systems are well done and the cards/units are interesting enough but the campaign is poorly written and missions not very interesting. The AI is also poor so skirmish mode is not fun.

Really enjoying it so far. As in the description it feels a lot like playing a space/sci-fi version of Advanced war. The battles/scenarios are fun, the ship design ability is interesting and it's really well-written and pretty well translated considering it's (I assume) a small Chinese development team.

One downside is that the tutorials don't really explain all the systems that well but you'll figure out things through trial and error and you don't waste a lot of time because of any misunderstandings.

Made a recording of my first 40 or so minutes with the game here.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/471570760

Will try make another video showing the ship design stuff later.

Just finished this one and there is a lot to like about it. The art and music is beautiful. The writing and voice acting is excellent. The overall plot isn't the most original (don't want to give away any spoilers) but the characters are interesting and well-written so their personalities come through strongly and you feel a genuine connection to them and their hopes and dreams. You will meet demons, curs, crones and many others.

Your time is divided between the sports game side of things and travelling the map in what feels like a choose your own adventure type game mode where you will meet new characters friend and foe, find artifacts with various in game boosts, get temporary blessings or find trinkets to sell to a travelling goblin storekeeper.

As your team becomes more experienced they will gain new skills and buffs as will opposing teams. It can be quite tricky as you only control one character at a time and need to move and cycle quickly between them to dodge, tackle, shoot, dive and fly around the field. However, you do not need to restart any matches, you could theoretically lose every game and still complete the game.

This is definitely a 8 out of 10 plus game for me. Well worth picking up on sale.

Decent combat. Relaxing RPG which doesn't take much thought to play. The graphics have not dated too badly.

7/10

Single player CCG with a cyber-punk theme. I found this a fun game and the campaign was a good length at around 12 hours. I'm surprised it didn't get more attention and sales. There's also a vampire expansion pack/mini campaign which was released for Halloween.

More detailed review here http://funnfunnystuff.blogspot.co.za/2017/03/a-z-backlog-challenge-system-crash.html

Really fun combination of a dungeon keeper type of game with your monsters fighting adventurers trying to steal your gold + sims style career progression, happiness, living together and having children of your monsters. More in-depth review here http://funnfunnystuff.blogspot.co.za/2017/04/a-z-backlog-challenge-unholy-heights.html.

Pros

The writing is amusing at times
The illustrations are pretty good

Cons

Everything else

The plot is boring
The fighting systems is boring
The class system was abandoned
It is extremely short (maybe this is a good thing)

I wrote a more detailed review here
http://funnfunnystuff.blogspot.co.za/2017/03/a-z-backlog-challenge-northmark-hour-of.html

This is one of my favourite games of the last year. It takes the loot based skill system which Card hunters introduced but adds in dungeons which you shape and some rogue-lite elements such as permadeath for your dungeoneers and upgrades for your guild which unlock the chance to get better loot, new character classes and other permanent or temporary boosts.

I look forward to seeing more games which combine elements of ccgs and other types of turn based tactics games.

Full review at http://funnfunnystuff.blogspot.co.za/2017/01/a-z-backlog-challenge-guild-of.html

Probably the least inspired RPG I have ever played. Quest are boring, fights are boring, upgrade system is boring. Got this as part of the Spiders studio pack. Even if you do the same, don't waste your time playing this just play the others. They have their issues but are at least fun at times.

More detailed review here

http://funnfunnystuff.blogspot.co.za/2017/01/a-z-backog-challenge-faery.html